SHARE

Top Ten ERP Trends: CRM, BI Lead the Way

The business navigation enabled by enterprise resource planning software provides a major competitive boost. How will these applications change in the years ahead? Drew Robb reports. A decade ago, enterprise resource planning (ERP) was the panacea for all enterprise ills (remember Y2K?). There were even several magazines devoted to the subject. But they all went […]

Written By

Drew Robb

Jan 11, 2011

Datamation content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More

The business navigation enabled by enterprise resource planning software provides a major competitive boost. How will these applications change in the years ahead? Drew Robb reports.

A decade ago, enterprise resource planning (ERP) was the panacea for all enterprise ills (remember Y2K?). There were even several magazines devoted to the subject. But they all went away in the 2000-2002 tech downturn as the ERP hype died down. Despite the diminished hype, ERP has quietly cemented its place as a mission-critical enterprise application.

So where does the ERP market stand today? Several trends are emerging, led by the growing importance of customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence.

Top ERP Trends

1. CRM Leads the Way

With companies still very concerned about budgets and ROI, this spells good news for CRM. Many ERP purchases are fronted by CRM, said Eric Kimberling, president of Panorama Consulting Group. The reason: It is a lot easier to demonstrate value for money for CRM packages that will directly increase sales.

“Many realize that the only way to make it out of the recession stronger is to fuel top-line growth and sales, and most will do so without hiring too many new sales and customer service reps,” said Kimberling. “For this reason, companies will look to CRM applications to help make their existing sales and customer service functions more effective and efficient.”

2. Business Intelligence Follows

Just as CRM benefits from a general rise in interest in ERP, so too will business intelligence. Kimberling sees this manifesting in more focus on diagnostics and analytics.

“Companies have reduced their margins of error for missteps during the recession, so they will continue to rely on ERP systems to provide operational data to make more informed decisions,” he said. “Look for diagnostics, analytics, and business intelligence applications to gain momentum in the coming year.”

Craig Himmelberger, director of marketing for SAP’s Business Suite, concurs.

“Access to business information for decision-making purposes is more and more critical and valuable, as will be supporting business analytics to create information out of data,” Himmelberger said.

3. ERP Market Stratification

In the roaring nineties, it seemed like there were hundreds of vendors in the ERP space. Many were relatively small outfits serving narrow verticals. What a difference a few years makes. These days, there are a few recognized players at the pinnacle as well as a smaller group of competitors in general.

“The big guys are SAP, Oracle and Microsoft,” said Kimberling. “But there are a number of up and comers such as Netsuite for smaller organizations, along with Tier II solutions in the SMB space such as Plex, Deacom, Epicor, Syspro and IFS, all examples of very strong and viable solutions.”

According to Gartner, the top five vendors in the $20 billion ERP market are SAP, Oracle, Sage, Infor and Microsoft.

Read the rest at eCRMguide.

Ethics and Artificial Intelligence: Driving Greater Equality

FEATURE | By James Maguire,
December 16, 2020
AI vs. Machine Learning vs. Deep Learning

FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
December 11, 2020
Huawei’s AI Update: Things Are Moving Faster Than We Think

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
December 04, 2020
Keeping Machine Learning Algorithms Honest in the ‘Ethics-First’ Era

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 18, 2020
Key Trends in Chatbots and RPA

FEATURE | By Guest Author,
November 10, 2020
Top 10 AIOps Companies

FEATURE | By Samuel Greengard,
November 05, 2020
What is Text Analysis?

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
November 02, 2020
How Intel’s Work With Autonomous Cars Could Redefine General Purpose AI

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 29, 2020
Dell Technologies World: Weaving Together Human And Machine Interaction For AI And Robotics

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
October 23, 2020
The Super Moderator, or How IBM Project Debater Could Save Social Media

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
October 16, 2020
Top 10 Chatbot Platforms

FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
October 07, 2020
Finding a Career Path in AI

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Guest Author,
October 05, 2020
CIOs Discuss the Promise of AI and Data Science

FEATURE | By Guest Author,
September 25, 2020
Microsoft Is Building An AI Product That Could Predict The Future

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 25, 2020
Top 10 Machine Learning Companies 2021

FEATURE | By Cynthia Harvey,
September 22, 2020
NVIDIA and ARM: Massively Changing The AI Landscape

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By Rob Enderle,
September 18, 2020
Continuous Intelligence: Expert Discussion [Video and Podcast]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 14, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Governance and Ethics [Video]

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | By James Maguire,
September 13, 2020
IBM Watson At The US Open: Showcasing The Power Of A Mature Enterprise-Class AI

FEATURE | By Rob Enderle,
September 11, 2020
Artificial Intelligence: Perception vs. Reality

FEATURE | By James Maguire,
September 09, 2020

SEE ALL
APPLICATIONS ARTICLES

Drew Robb

Drew Robb is a contributing writer for Datamation, Enterprise Storage Forum, eSecurity Planet, Channel Insider, and eWeek. He has been reporting on all areas of IT for more than 25 years. He has a degree from the University of Strathclyde UK (USUK), and lives in the Tampa Bay area of Florida.